The Sound of Silence by VanillaWind [Pokémon]

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The Sound of Silence is a Pokémon fan fiction short story about a Poochyena named Shade who finds himself alone in the aftermath of a terrible battle between Groudon and Kyogre. The pain of loss he feels is as fresh as the destruction all around, but he struggles to go on.

One thing I liked about this story was the style. VanillaWind seems to have a good sense of pacing, as well as a good balance of vivid imagery and descriptions that make for a nice smooth read. I especially liked the way that the Poochyena's body is described with realistic complexity that is, at the same time, easily imagined while we see Shade struggling to get up. There's more good description in the second chapter, when we see the surroundings and atmosphere in the wake of the destruction.

One thing I wondered about was who apologized in the flashback scene we see in the first chapter and why. Given the situation, I don't understand why either character would stop to apologize, although, perhaps if I was given a little more context as to what the apology was for and a description of what the character was doing as they said it, it might make more sense. What I'm mostly concerned about here is avoiding a situation like a certain scene from the movie Titanic, about which one might argue that a certain wooden door is obviously strong enough to support the weight of two people and, besides that, it really seems as though more could have been done. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you could watch the movie -- although it is super long and not so great in my personal opinion, so you could just Google it. My point is, you want to be sure that it's obvious to your audience that certain events were unavoidable and that everything possible was tried. Maybe the door really does sink with two people on it, but make sure that the audience agrees with you on that.

Beyond that, I'm curious to see where this story is going. After two chapters (all that is published currently), I'm not completely sure what the main focus of the plot is, although I can see some things happening. I'm also assuming that a few more details will be revealed about a certain character that has been on Shadow's mind over the course of the first two chapters but whose exact relationship towards him is yet to be explained. I think the story may end up hinging on internal conflict within Shadow, but I also think that I could be surprised. Either way, it's a solid beginning, fairly well written, with the only noticeable errors being a couple of extra commas and a misused semicolon. I'll have to wait and see how it ends.

** Published in December 2015 **



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